Burning the Jolly Roger

Pirates in Burning Wheel Gold

Session 5

In Which Goods are Sold and Three Important Deals are Made

6

MAY/12

Players present this session: Mark, Moobaka, Zadoc Olmstead
The delay in posting this update brought to you by Diablo III. Also, sheer laziness.

The session started off with a bang as Captain Mark and Moobaka got into a verbal disagreement over Moobaka’s punishment for the trouble he’d been causing and Moobaka’s growing frustrations. Moobaka wanted to be paid in virgins right now, and Mark wanted him to sit down, shut up, and keep out of trouble. This little confrontation is actually kind of problematic for Mark, because he has a Belief about delivering Moobaka intact to a certain location in roughly a year and a half, so he has to keep him alive and keep him satisfied enough to go where Mark leads.

The altercation eventually settled into a Duel of Wits for which Moobaka was woefully unprepared. Seriously, his only DoW skill was Intimidation, which he can’t use to make Points with. Further, both characters declared it to be A Big Deal, so Mark got the full benefit of his 6 Will on top of his very good Oratory for his Body of Argument. ’Baka’s BoA was … less robust. Still, he managed to make a few points on Mark before running out, and the eventual compromise was this: Moobaka will stop getting in trouble; in exchange, his pay is to be converted entirely into reasonably attractive female virgin slaves when possible. What he does with the slaves once he’s done with them is his business (and will probably involve selling them for petty cash, since he won’t receive any cash or loot from ship’s shares).

Once that was dealt with, the Scalped Morays was unloaded of the tin and sent, along with Gelik Aberwhinge, Aerys Mavato, most of the Crimson Axe marines, and Zadoc, plus enough conscripted sailors to man it, to the port of Gole to sell the cheese (which was perishable and thus needed to be sold promptly) and to look for interested buyers for the tin. Gelik was instructed to purchase provisions, lumber, and ideally a carpenter with the proceeds. Zadoc was additionally instructed to find a girl for Moobaka. This was also a bit of an experiment, in that it wasn’t certain whether the Morays would make it through the Sea of Manaan without the Serpent to accompany it.

Of course, as soon as the port was sighted, one of the sailors (the only one who knew how to swim) jumped overboard and set out swimming for port. Knowing Mark’s views on keeping the Silver Serpent’s secret safe, Zadoc prompty drew a very sketchy summoning circle — no prison! — and attempted to summon the Persuasive One to ensure the secret was kept (the idea was to either magick him into being unable to talk about the Serpent, or simply make him forget, not to kill him).

Unfortunately, the summoning went slightly awry. Instead of the Persuasive One, Zadoc summoned the Mind Flayer, a rather more powerful and (given that there was no prison circle) dramatically more dangerous being. Zadoc attempted to bargain with it, but without the prison circle to restrict it, the bargaining became another Duel of Wits, with the Mind Flayer declaring that it would feast on everyone it could find until it was sated, and Zadoc trying to persuade it to limit itself to just the fleeing sailor and to be receptive to future summonings. This Duel was just as inevitable as Mark and Moobaka’s, due to the Daemon’s stats and skills all being grey shade. However, Zadoc did an amazing job (and got pretty lucky) and scored a major compromise against the Daemon: the Mind Flayer would take only the sailor — and Zadoc himself.

Zadoc was transported to an Other Realm, where he was Lost in Time and Space. He paid a Persona point for the Will to Live, lost a current and maximum point of Perception as he now literally has dark voices whispering in his head, aged two years, got to do a bit of practice, aged two years, and became permanently bald. Everywhere.

As far as Gelik and the others aboard the Morays knew, Zadoc was dead and gone. However, the rest of the Moray’s trip to Gole was uneventful; the cheese was sold, provisions and lumber were bought, but no carpenter was found, and because Zadoc hadn’t told anyone of his own orders, no woman for Moobaka, either. An auction was set up for the tin in a month’s time, to give everyone time.

Loaded up with the new purchases and minus two crew members, the Morays returned to the island, safely navigating the trip through the Sea of Manaan in both directions. Moobaka was very, very, very upset to not have a new woman to play with and went to stomp off in the jungle for a while to let off steam. The next morning, Zadoc washed ashore, naked and hairless, much to the confusion of pretty much everyone.